Belarus

Associated Press

News about Belarus, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Dec. 28, 2014

Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko of Belarus offers no explanation for dismissal of Prime Min Mikhail Myasnikovich, along with head of country's central bank; reorganization seems to suggest significant challenges facing country due to its heavy reliance on Russia at time when Russia is at odds with West. MORE

May. 30, 2014

Presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus formally sign agreement long pursued by Pres Vladimir V Putin to create limited economic union, even as alliance is weakened by absence of Ukraine and is pale counterpart to European Union. MORE

Nov. 29, 2013

Russian-backed idea to form free-trade zone on territory of much of former Soviet Union is closer to fruition than ever before; bloc, less tightly woven than the European Union, currently comprises Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, and may be joined by at least three more former Soviet states. MORE

Oct. 15, 2013

Russia opens criminal investigation into the chief executive of the potash producer Uralkali, Vladislav Baumgertner, and will request his extradition from Belarus. MORE

Sep. 17, 2013

Russia has withdrawn from cartel with Belarus to sell potash, one of three main ingredients in fertilizer, which has led to lower potash costs for American farmers; so-called 'fertilizer war' is latest of numerous trade and economic spats between Russia and Belarus. MORE

Nov. 20, 2012

Belarus government says it will evict Vyasna Human Rights Center, one of country's most prominent human rights organizations, from office it has occupied for 12 years because it is property of Ales Belyatsky, organization's leader who was sentenced to prison for tax evasion in 2011. MORE

Oct. 27, 2012

Great Britain grants political asylum to prominent Belarussian dissident and former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov. MORE

Sep. 25, 2012

Supporters of Belarussian Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko win every seat in Parliament in election that is widely seen as rigged. MORE

Sep. 24, 2012

Belarus holds parliamentary elections and international observers note improvements in the country's election law; European Union, having shifted their emphasis to election law and away from political prisoners, will review the travel ban imposed on President Aleksandr G Lukashenko in 2010. MORE

Sep. 20, 2012

Belarus, preparing to hold a parliamentary election, denies visas for two observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; OCSE is returning to Belarus for the first time since it was expelled after a contentious 2010 presidential election. MORE

Aug. 14, 2012

Belarus shot-putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk is stripped of her gold medal after testing positive for an anabolic steroid; the gold medal is retroactively awarded to New Zealand's Valerie Adams, the defending Olympic champion; Russia's Evgeniia Kolodko moves up to silver and China's Lijiao Gong will receive a bronze medal. MORE

Aug. 9, 2012

Hungary wins the gold medal in the 500-meter sprint for four-woman kayaks at the 2012 Olympics; Germany finishes second and Belarus third; some coaches bicycled alongside their teams on a parallel concrete path, offering loud words of encouragement. MORE

Aug. 2, 2012

Belarus Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko has reacted sharply to a security breach in which Swedish pilots airdropped teddy bears bearing anti-authoritarian signs on Minsk, firing two generals and issuing a warning to his minister of defense. MORE

Jul. 26, 2012

Britain says it will not waive a visa restriction for Belarus’s autocratic president, Aleksandr G Lukashenko, and others accused of human rights abuses, to attend the 2012 Summer Olympics. MORE

Jul. 17, 2012

Op-Ed article by journalist Andrej Dynko contends that Belarus's Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko maintains his 17-year-old dictatorial regime by imprisoning thousands of opposition activists and leaders under extremely harsh conditions; notes that Lukashenko also draws power from a privileged relationship with Russia, which provides significant economic support to Belarus. MORE

Jul. 4, 2012

Andrzej Poczobut, a Polish journalist based in western Belarus, is indicted on libel charges after alleging that Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko influenced a court decision to execute two men convicted of an April 2011 bombing of a Minsk subway station. MORE

Apr. 15, 2012

Belarus grants early release to one of its most prominent political prisoners, Andrei Sannikov, in a move that might be intended to ease its strained relationship with the European Union; Sannikov was convicted of organizing mass unrest and given a five-year sentence in May 2011, during the harshest crackdown of Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko's rule. MORE

Mar. 19, 2012

Belarus confirms that Vladislav Kovalyov and Dmitri Konovalov, convicted of bombing a subway station in April, 2011 in Minsk, had been put to death; executions are condemned by Western officials and international human rights groups, who express serious doubts that the men had been guilty; many in Belarus apparently also have their doubts as people laid flowers and lighted candles at the site of the bombing in what independent news agencies in the country describe as a protest against the executions. MORE

Mar. 17, 2012

International rights organizations and Western governments plead with Belarus authorities to put off execution of Dmitri Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalyov, two men convicted of carrying out deadly 2011 bombing at a Minsk subway station, because of serious questions about their guilt; men may already be dead, since Belarus officials do not typically inform family members or news media of execution dates. MORE

Mar. 16, 2012

Government of Belarus is apparently barring opponents of Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko, which includes several journalists, opposition political figures and human rights workers, from leaving the former Soviet republic. MORE

Mar. 1, 2012

Belarus warns of an escalation of tensions after the European Union withdraws the ambassadors of all its member countries; at the center of the dispute is the human rights record of President Aleksandr G Lukashenko’s government; Western governments have been gradually increasing pressure on it in the hope that political and economic isolation will force political liberalization. MORE

Feb. 29, 2012

Belarus orders the ambassadors for the European Union and Poland to leave the country, while recalling its own envoys in response to new sanctions by the European bloc; bloc's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, responds by announcing that envoys for all of the union's 27 countries would be recalled from Belarus; EU sanctions were initiated in response to human rights violations. MORE

Dec. 21, 2011

Femen, a Ukrainian organization of topless female activists, says that three of its members were abducted by Belarussian security officers and were beaten, humiliated and left naked in a forest; the group has become widely known in Ukraine and neighboring countries for its demonstrations in which women bare their breasts to draw attention to a variety of causes. MORE

Dec. 1, 2011

Court in Belarus hands down a death sentence against two men who had been found guilty of setting off a bomb in a subway station in the capital Minsk, killing 15 people and wounding hundreds; Belarus is the only country in Europe in which the death penalty remains legal. MORE

Nov. 26, 2011

Ales Belyatsky, a prominent human rights activist in Belarus, is sentenced to four and a half years in prison after a trial for tax evasion that Western governments denounce as politically motivated. MORE

Nov. 26, 2011

Belarus sells full control of its Yamal-Europe pipeline to Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, in exchange for loans and a discounted price on natural gas; agreement, worth more than $14 billion, ties Belarus into an even tighter union with Moscow. MORE

Nov. 19, 2011

Presidents of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan sign agreements aimed at tightening economic integration, a step toward what Moscow hopes will be a Eurasian Union linking former Soviet states. MORE

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